Ballroom Marfa co-founder Fairfax Dorn to Receive Distinguished Alumna Award; playwright Isaac Gómez to receive Young Alumnus Award
The Still Water Foundation will receive the 2022 E. William Doty Award, the highest honor bestowed by the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. The E. William Doty Award is named for the founding dean of the College of Fine Arts and recognizes individuals or organizations who have distinguished themselves through extraordinary professional achievement and/or demonstrated long-term dedication to the college.
This year, the college will also honor arts executive, curator and designer Fairfax Dorn (B.F.A., Studio Art, 1997; B.A., Art History, 1998) with the E. William Doty Distinguished Alumna Award and playwright Isaac Gómez (B.A., Theatre and Dance, 2013) with the E. William Doty Young Alumnus Award.
The Still Water Foundation is a private family foundation based in Austin, which primarily supports organizations in Texas. The Foundation’s main areas of concentration include the arts, education and the environment. The Foundation is also deeply committed to partnering with rural communities, particularly those in West Texas.
Since 2008, Still Water has been a key supporter of Landmarks, the University’s public art program housed within the College of Fine Arts. With the continued generous support of the Foundation, Landmarks has become one of the most prestigious university public art collections in the country, inspiring students and scholars from disciplines across the Forty Acres.
Distinguished Alumna Award recipient Fairfax Dorn is the co-founder of Ballroom Marfa, an internationally-recognized contemporary non-profit art space located in West Texas, where she served as the Executive Director until 2013. Dorn is also founder and the principal of FDP, an interior design collective dedicated to exploring the relationship between art and furniture. Dorn has previously worked with non-profit arts organizations including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Linda Pace Foundation and Exit Art and currently serves on the boards of Whitney Museum of American Art and Judd Foundation. As a graduate of UT Austin, she served as a representative of the College of Fine Arts on the UT Student Council.
Young Alumnus Award recipient Isaac Gómez is an award-winning Chicago and Los Angeles-based playwright and screenwriter. Gomez grew up in El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. As a playwright, they are currently under commission with LCT3, Steppenwolf Theater Company, South Coast Repertory, Denver Center for the Performing Arts and IAMA Theatre Company. Their plays have been produced and/or developed by Audible Theater, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Primary Stages, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Goodman Theatre, the Alley Theatre, among others. Gómez is the recipient of the 2018 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award, the 2017 Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award at Primary Stages, and the inaugural 3Arts “Make A Wave” grantee.
Gómez’s television credits include the Netflix Original Series Narcos: Mexico, an announced Adam McKay television series for Netflix; the first writers room for Kings of America on Netflix; the upcoming Apple TV+ original series The Last Thing He Told Me starring Julia Roberts and, most recently, an unannounced show for Paramount TV+.
The Still Water Foundation, Dorn and Gómez will be honored at a private event in February.